Epic Games Launches ‘Virtual Production Week’ Featuring Free Online Presentations and Panels

As Epic Games’ “Virtual Production Week” kicks off today, the use of Unreal Engine in the production community continues to grow exponentially. In addition to being leveraged in a plethora of live-sports productions, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine has become popular across the entire media and entertainment spectrum. Epic is marking the momentous year with “Virtual Production Week,” a five-day community event running from Jan 24-28. Epic will host free online presentations and panels from industry experts showcasing how Unreal Engine has been adopted in film and television production. CLICK HERE to check it out.

“Real-time technology has enabled a seismic shift in how film and TV content is produced, where now the technology is aligned with accessibility for creatives, regardless of the medium,” says Miles Perkins, Industry Manager Film & Television, Epic Games. “As game and film technology merge, it frees filmmakers to work more collaboratively and iteratively, and we’re constantly refining Unreal Engine to add new features tuned specifically for virtual production. The demand for these real-time skills has exploded and we know it will only continue to grow as more and more filmmakers are exposed to this new way of working.”

Here’s a quick roundup of some Unreal Engine updates over the past year:

  • In 2020, there were less than a dozen ICVFX stages up and running, and today, Epic’s now tracking more than 250 ICVFX stages across the globe.
  • Originally used by only the most technically-advanced studios, virtual production has now become ubiquitous. The demand for real-time production tools has skyrocketed and the recent Unreal Engine 4.27 release was tailor-made to meet these production demands.
  • In 2021, Epic Games saw more than 1.5 times the number of new projects in film and television using Unreal Engine compared to 2020.

Virtual Production Week content includes a fireside chat with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and exclusive first-look at Netflix’s upcoming ‘Super Giant Robot Brothers!’ animated series

Recent and upcoming films that have used Unreal Engine either for previsualization, stuntvis, virtual location scouting and art department, and/or in-camera visual effects include Space Sweepers, A Writer’s Odyssey, Jungle Cruise, Infinite, The Tomorrow War, The Suicide Squad, Free Guy, Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Dune, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The King’s Man and The Matrix Resurrections, with many more ahead in the 2022 release slate. Recent and upcoming television productions using Unreal Engine include Star Trek: Discovery, House of the Dragon, The Mandalorian, 1899, Ted Lasso, Sweet Tooth, Superman & Lois, SEE, Stargirl, and The Boys.

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